TallGuyJohninBKK

I also have had a less than positive experience with Surfshark, despite their appealing low price. 1. SS doesn't unlock a lot of the different major streaming services (you'll get an error message saying the service has recognized you're using a VPN or a proxy). And 2 (and this is probably a more narrow issue for me): I run a full time VPN off of my wifi router. But sometimes, I'll want to use a different city connection for a particular device, and thus try to use SS and its app on top of my router's VPN connection. And SS has an annoying system practice of then locking me out of using their service, and I have to contact their customer service to release the lock. For those reasons, I won't be extending my current sub with them when it expires.

Of course, the best way to look at things on a country to country basis is to look at per capita comparisons, cases or deaths per million population. That can be skewed somewhat by a country's reporting/testing/tracking practices, but it's at least a snapshot. Right now, Thailand doesn't look so bad compared to several other countries in Asia (South Korea, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia). And has lower current per capita COVID case counts and deaths than the UK. And has a current COVID death rate of about only one-third compared to the U.S. The chart below is from the Thai MoPH as of yesterday (with my annotations to show the points I mentioned above): https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/521072726177723/?type=3 The comparative case count rates can be explained somewhat by testing practices, with South Korea and the UK, for example, being far more aggressive than Thailand in COVID testing. But the comparative COVID death rate comparisons are harder to explain away.

Looks like, with tomorrow's update, Thailand is likely to pass the 1 million+ official COVID cases mark for 2022. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/posts/521682666116729 The good news is, Thailand's COVID case fatality rate (the share of COVID deaths out of officially reported cases) continues running at a low level of 0.21% for 2022, reflecting the Omicron variant, as opposed to its cumulative 0.74% CFR dating back to the beginning of the pandemic and reflecting last year's Delta wave.

Here's a new chart from MoPH that shows the daily official case count, serious hospitalizations and deaths over the past week. As I noted, the new case count today is higher than it was one week ago. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/posts/521684556116540 And this is what you DON'T want to be seeing:

At least part of it is the weekends - weekdays factor... You need to look more broadly. The official case count actually has risen from last Monday's report (a week ago) on March 7 at 21,162, to today's 22,130 figure.

You need to look at the bigger picture, and also at the data that wasn't available earlier in the morning when this forum daily news update was posted. COVID cases in hospital and intubated patients have been increasing almost every day, and once again set new record highs for 2022 on Monday, as explained in my post above. Those numbers are increasing, not falling. But they're not available every day until AFTER the forum's daily news report is posted, so they're not in the headlines you read every day. And, it's not uncommon for Thailand's COVID case numbers to decline over the weekend periods and into Monday, which reflects Sunday's new case reporting, but then rise again during the ensuing weekdays. Remains to be seen which direction the coming weekdays will go.

Newly reported official COVID cases declined for a third consecutive day on Monday, not uncommon reflecting Sunday's weekend reporting period, while serious cases in hospital and intubated patients both rose again to set new record highs for the year. The 22,130 new official COVID cases was Thailand's lowest tally in the past five days. Likewise, the number of unofficial cases based on positive ATK cases fell to 15,650, the lowest tally in at least a week. However, daily new COVID deaths rose to a relatively high level of 69, up from 66 the day before. And the number of COVID cases in various alternate care arrangements including home quarantine also set a new record high for the year at 162,460. Serious COVID cases with pneumonia in hospital continued their steady upward climb to a new 2022 record of 1,353. And the same for intubated COVID cases, which hit a new yearly record of 453 and have risen for six of the past seven days. With Monday's update, Thailand's current number of intubated COVID cases has now tripled since the start of the year. And the number of serious COVID cases in hospital has more than doubled. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main For added context, during the peak of the Delta wave last fall, Thailand's daily COVID case count topped out at 23,418, but the numbers of serious hospital cases and intubated patients peaked above 5,600 and 1,100 respectively, and daily deaths topped 300 for a brief period.

Hong Kong logs 32,430 Covid-19 cases and 264 deaths as city leader concedes authorities cannot keep up with number of residents in home quarantine Some 300,000 Covid-19 patients and their close contacts are now under home quarantine https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3170292/coronavirus-300000-patients-close-contacts-under-home COVID-19 infections in South Korea are at their peak — the highest daily average reported — now at 284,805 new infections reported each day. COVID-19 infections in Vietnam are at their peak — the highest daily average reported — now at 238,661 new infections reported each day. https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/hong-kong/

I don't find many references in the news to a "BA2.2" version of Omicron as mentioned in The Nation above regarding Hong Kong. But, I did find this one March 8 reference in the UK Daily Mail, which isn't considered a particularly credible source: Mutant Omicron strain is killing 280 people a DAY in Hong Kong - and it's already in Australia Hong Kong is being ravaged by a deadly new Omicron wave sweeping the city Hundreds are dying every day with thousands dead since the middle of February All the latest cases have been of a new mutant strain of Omicron dubbed BA2.2 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10592027/Covid-Australia-Deadly-mutant-Omicron-strain-Hong-Kong-hits-Australia.html

Not sure where the guy is getting those numbers from. The MoPH international comparisons chart released on Sunday shows very different numbers, although the order of magnitude difference between HK and TH right now is huge! Although the full version of the same chart via the weblink below shows that South Korea is actually running an even higher rate of per capita COVID cases per week, almost 39,000 per 1 million population. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=276529164652218&set=a.245678317737303&type=3

Yikes! Now there's a BA2.2 variant of Omicron... It's getting hard to keep up... But one thing's clear -- Thailand's NOT "done" with this yet by any means. Screen visitors from HK, Britain to stop Omicron BA2.2 reaching Thailand, top health official warns Arrivals from Britain and Hong Kong must be screened for the Omicron BA.2.2 subvariant, warned Public Health Commission vice chair Dr Chalermchai Boonyaleephan. In his Blockdit post on Saturday, Chalermchai said Omicron BA.2.2 is severely impacting Hong Kong where weekly average Covid-19 infections have soared to 5,425 per million people, compared to 315 per million in Thailand. "Meanwhile Hong Kong's seven-day death rate from Covid-19 is 30 per million people, compared to 0.85 in Thailand," he said... Chalermchai also confirmed that Omicron BA.2.2 has not yet been discovered in Thailand. (more) https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40013339?

And MoPH breakdown of the day's 66 official COVID deaths: --40 males and 26 females --64 Thais, 1 "English" and 1 Myanmar --Median age 75, with an age range of 4 months to 97 years --55 of the deaths or 83% were age 60 or older --9 of the deaths or 14% were under age 60 with chronic conditions --2 of the deaths or 3% were under age 60 with no chronic conditions --By province, the most COVID deaths occurred in Bangkok with 14. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/posts/521074659510863

Once again, it looks like there's no forum news story update on Sunday regarding today's COVID update. So I'll post it here, same as last Sunday: Newly reported official COVID cases declined for a second consecutive day on Sunday, which is not uncommon for weekend periods, while serious COVID cases in hospital and patients requiring intubation to breathe again both rose slightly to set new record highs for the year. Official COVID deaths dropped from 68 on Saturday to 66 on Sunday. Despite 60+ new official COVID deaths occurring daily, the count of total serious COVID cases in hospital has risen every day for at least the past six days, and the count of intubated COVID patients has risen for five of the past six days. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main For added context, during the peak of the Delta wave last fall, Thailand's daily COVID case count topped out at 23,418, but the numbers of serious hospital cases and intubated patients peaked above 5,600 and 1,100 respectively, and daily deaths topped 300 for a brief period.

The same researchers who have predicted that world COVID-related deaths likely are about THREE times higher than the officially reported numbers for 2020 and 2021 seem to have been ahead of the game regarding Massachusetts. In their study published earlier this month, despite the UNDERcounting on a global basis, they actually predicted that Massachusetts was one jurisdiction that may have OVERcounted their COVID deaths -- an exception to the overall reality. And their estimates for a lower total (15,000 instead of 20,000 by the end of 2021) look to be pretty darn close to the reduction announced by the state. None of that, of course, changes the broader COVID deaths picture on a global basis. http://www.thelancet-press.com/embargo/COVIDexcessmortality.pdf "Findings Although reported COVID-19 deaths between Jan 1, 2020, and Dec 31, 2021, totalled 5·94 million worldwide, we estimate that 18·2 million (95% uncertainty interval 17·1–19·6) people died worldwide because of the COVID-19 pandemic (as measured by excess mortality) over that period." ... "The full impact of the pandemic has been much greater than what is indicated by reported deaths due to COVID-19 alone. Strengthening death registration systems around the world, long understood to be crucial to global public health strategy, is necessary for improved monitoring of this pandemic and future pandemics."

Yes, we do know....to some extent... the basis of the COVID deaths UNDERcounting.... The estimates done by The Economist and IHME are based on "excess deaths" -- which looks at how much higher the overall death rates are for the COVID years vs. the typical years that preceded them. Then they take various other factors into consideration to develop their estimates on how much higher the COVID death numbers likely are vs. the officially reported stats.

The Economist has periodically been updating their COVID death estimates both globally and by country, including in current time into 2022. They estimate Thailand has had 59,540 COVID deaths since April 1, 2020 -- almost three times the officially reported number. Worldwide, they're estimating that global COVID deaths are just about three times the official tally of about 6 million. It's a matter of UNDER counting COVID deaths, not overcounting them. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

There's been a deliberate and extensive misinformation campaign by COVID-skeptic and anti-vax groups to misrepresent the entire issue of how COVID deaths are counted, dealing with the "of" vs "with" issue. But in fact, globally, several independent research groups have estimated that actual COVID deaths are probably three times or so higher than the official counts. The details of the short answer and truth of this are -- people who die of COVID don't generally die of the virus itself alone, but rather, they die of various effects the virus causes in the body such as respiratory failure, pneumonia, heart, liver, kidney failure, strokes and on and on. So invariably, when COVID has set in motion the process of killing someone, there are almost always other parallel conditions (so-called comorbidities) that end up getting listed on the death certificate. In the case of COVID deaths, those other conditions either wouldn't have occurred at all, or might have been pre-existing but wouldn't have been acutely fatal, were it not for COVID. The presence of those other comorbidities doesn't mean it wasn't COVID that actually triggered the decline in health that led to the fatality.

"Bennett thus risks lending legitimacy to Putin while harming Israel’s status and interests in the eyes of its free world allies. He seems to be placing Israel not firmly in the camp of the free world, the Ukraine-supporting world, the sanctions-backing world, in the standoff against a rapacious, mass-murdering autocrat, but somewhere troublingly, uniquely, in-between. Quite apart from the moral intolerability of this position, and the dangerous daylight it places between Israel and its core allies, most especially the United States, this undermines Israel’s own vital need: that the international community, standing together with Ukraine in resisting a warmongering regional power’s devastating agenda, will do precisely the same for Israel when it comes to Iran." https://www.timesofisrael.com/bennetts-attempts-at-neutrality-on-russia-ukraine-spell-trouble-for-israel-on-iran/

So how's it really going out there on Thailand's supposed road to COVID endemic status? Every now and again, despite the stance of officialdom, glimmers of truth unintentionally shine thru, like when the government has to explain why things aren't working well: "NHSO Secretary-General Dr. Jadet Thammathat-Aree explained yesterday (Thursday) that the main reason that this group of patients have been unable to get help from the NHSO so far is because its 1330 hotline system has been so overwhelmed with calls from patients that they cannot get through, and existing isolation facilities are full, causing another problem, which is a backlog of waiting patients who have already registered for isolation facilities. After being made to wait for help for several days, he said that many registered patients have tried to contact the NHSO again via the hotlines and other channels, further overwhelming the system." https://aseannow.com/topic/1253118-thailand-to-expedite-mailing-of-favipiravir-to-covid-19-patients/

What the article reference above fails to reflect is that the numbers being cited only reflect Thailand's official count of COVID deaths. And other, outside sources (IHME and The Economist) say that Thailand's official COVID deaths count is really a substantial undercount of all the actual deaths caused by COVID. Thailand says 23,643 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. Researchers at IHME say the true number is more than 35,000. And The Economist estimates the actual number at more than 59,000. So let's keep our eyes on the real ball here. "Findings: Although reported COVID-19 deaths between Jan 1, 2020, and Dec 31, 2021, totalled 5·94 million worldwide, we estimate that 18·2 million (95% uncertainty interval 17·1–19·6) people died worldwide because of the COVID-19 pandemic (as measured by excess mortality) over that period." http://www.thelancet-press.com/embargo/COVIDexcessmortality.pdf

New official COVID cases reported Saturday declined slightly to 24,592, but COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition (1,312) and patients requiring intubation to breathe (435) both rose again to set new record highs for the year. The government also reported 68 new COVID deaths. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main For added context, during the peak of the Delta wave last fall, Thailand's daily COVID case count topped out at 23,418, but the numbers of serious hospital cases and intubated patients peaked above 5,600 and 1,100 respectively, and daily deaths topped 300 for a brief period.

MoPH on Friday also released the follow trends chart for the period Feb. 26 to March 11 showing, in order on the chart from left to right: --serious COVID cases in hospital by day --hospitalized COVID patients requiring intubation by day --new COVID deaths by day, and --the 14-day average of new official COVID cases by day https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/519888416296154/?type=3

For starters, Thailand has a total population of more than 70 million, so the monthly case numbers you're citing for a few months are relatively small in comparison. Then, you're not recognizing that Omicron cases in Thailand are a relatively recent arrival, Omicron is better at evading prior infections than Delta was, the immunity from past infections only has a limited duration, and may or may not even protect against the newer BA2 variant that's now overtaking the original BA1 Omicron variant. Infection doesn’t provide good immunity against Omicron "According to a December 2021 South African study, the risk of reinfection from the Omicron coronavirus variant is 3 times higher than it is for previous strains of the virus. ... Omicron variant is associated with substantial ability to evade immunity from prior infection." AND "Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said it’s not known exactly how long the protection after natural infection will last and how durable that protection will be against a variety of different variants." https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-long-does-immunity-last-after-covid-19-what-we-know

MOPH released this chart today ranking the numbers of serious COVID cases with pneumonia by province, with Bangkok, the most populous single province, having the most with 182 as of March 10. The far right column indicates the bed occupancy rate of Level 2 and 3 hospitals beds for COVID patient care in those various provinces. The red / yellow / green colors indicate whether the case numbers in that province are rising, remaining flat or declining. The individual province numbers below should be out of a total of 1,238 total serious COVID cases with pneumonia in hospitals reported nationwide as of yesterday among 77 provinces. https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/photos/a.106455480972785/519888636296132/?type=3

Not a very large share... since Omicron only replaced Delta as the predominant variant in Thailand toward the beginning of 2022. And, the so-called "natural immunity" you refer to isn't permanent, but is only temporary, post infection. And, there's no guarantee that having had a previous COVID infection is necessarily going to protect you against a different variant in the future.